Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Tool #11 - Self Assessing and Reflecting

1.What are your favorite tools you now have in your personal technology toolbox? Briefly describe a particular activity that you will plan for your students using at least one of these new tools.

I think that Google docs will have the most immediate impact for me as a teacher, not only interacting with my students, but also with my peers. As mentioned in a previous blog, I plan to use Google docs as the collection method for assigning the students a project for collecting definitions of the Art Elements.

2. How have you transformed your thinking about the learning that will take place in your classroom? How has your vision for your classroom changed? Are you going to need to make any changes to your classroom to accommodate the 21st Century learner?

First of all, I really enjoyed the video by Sir Ken Robinson. It really encapsulated well the need fro a new paradigm shift. I would like to take a somewhat less linear view of my class and incorporate more flexibility in my assignments.One lesson I have taken from all this is that the student will gain more if they are accessing the knowledge, rather than me just spoon feeding it to them. As far as changes to the classroom, the new iMac and Wacom tablets will help, but I think I will also need to incorporate more visits to the library computer labs.

3. Were there any unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I'm not sure that "surprised" is the right word, but certainly encouragement and confirmation that there are more efficient ways to reach our children and make our lives easier as teacher.